At the 2017 world championships, in Sierra Nevada (Spain), Perrine Laffont won the title in mogul skiing, but she had to settle for silver in parallel. Sunday, February 26, in Bakuriani, Georgia, the Pyrenean finally won the double that she had come close to six years earlier. After winning the singles event the day before, the 24-year-old skier won the title at the same time, beating the American Jaelin Kauf in the grand final. The bronze medal went to the Austrian Avital Carroll, completing a podium identical to that of Saturday.
Less than twenty-four hours after her first victory in the competition, Perrine Laffont found the physical resources necessary to chain four passages on the bumps: she dominated the Finnish Riikka Voutilainen in eighths, the Briton Makayla Gerken Schofield in quarters, then Avital Carroll in the semi-finals.
She therefore found in the duel for gold Jaelin Kauf, single agent medalist on Saturday and Olympic vice-champion at the 2022 Winter Games in China. The two skiers had already faced each other in February in Deer Valley (United States) in the World Cup. The Ariègeoise had won, signing her first victory of the season.
” I can not believe it “
Perrine Laffont, who had already won world gold in parallel in 2017 and 2019 and in singles in 2021, becomes with this double the most successful mogul skier in history with five planetary crowns, ahead of Canadian Jennifer Heil and Norwegian Kari Traa, gold four times.
“I can’t believe it, doing the double at the world championships is something you can dream of when you’re an athlete and a mogul skier. It’s awesome !rejoiced the Frenchwoman after the final. It’s hard to believe it, because it’s so much work. A big thank you to my team, my partners, and all those who work with me, without them I would not have succeeded. It’s crazy ! »
On the men’s side, Canadian Mikaël Kingsbury signed a “triple-double”, as he doubled his gold medal on Saturday’s single moguls with a new parallel title on Sunday, as he had already done in 2019 and 2021.
He edged out the reigning Olympic champion, Sweden’s Walter Wallberg, while bronze went to Australia’s Matt Graham. Again for the same podium as the test the day before, but in another order. Sixth the day before, the Frenchman Benjamin Cavet stopped in the quarter-finals on Sunday, beaten by Kingsbury.